Five corpses were carried out in body bags from one crumpled building alone in the hard-hit town of Ercis as bystanders wept. Workers used heavy machinery, jackhammers, shovels, pick axes and bare hands to comb through smashed concrete and steel.

A video shows rescuers escorting the baby to the hospital.

In downtown Ercis, a town of 80,000, "every third or fourth apartment building had collapsed into a tangle of concrete," Dow Jones reports.

Residents slept in cars or tents, or outside, in freezing conditions, afraid to return to their homes as aftershocks rattled Van province.